


the Museum Field Trip

by IObse33



Category: Cars (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Anger, Captivity, Depression, Elementary School, Essay, Friendship, Illness, Museums, POV First Person, school field trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IObse33/pseuds/IObse33
Summary: To apply for volunteering in aid of the National Cars Rights Organisation, it is required that a paper explaining reasons of interest in such a movement is in your interest, be it you are a car or a human. This paper may be an essay of statistical support or a story drawn from personal experience. Any length is allowed, and stories may be published for public review uppon being accepted.please email your response to-This is the story of Gabby Arnaz, and a small event on a school field trip to the local museum that opened her eyes to the treatment of cars around the world.
Relationships: Doc Hudson & Sheriff (Cars)
Kudos: 12
Collections: Inequal





	the Museum Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> This story has no violent gore or death, but is sad and perhaps even frightening, and so I plead that while you read at your own risk, you consider the risk carefully.

To the National Cars Rights Organisation(NCRO),

  


I remember the whole field trip seemed off. I was ten, or eleven. It was right around the month of my birthday, you see. But again, the whole thing seemed off. It wasn't the best idea for a field trip, and that was obvious from the start, but I think I was the only kid who noticed, and the only one who cared past the horror we felt after the trip. There were about four, no five events that made it so memorable and quirky. 

  


The first moment was over a month beforehand. I was very sociable. But I was also a teachers pet. I strived in English and math together, something I was told was uncommon. That is besides the point though, the fact is, I was also a teachers pet, and so occasionally I would postpone meeting my friends for lunch recess to instead help around the classroom of my teacher. This was one of those days. I had been given the task of cleaning off the whiteboards with a spray and towel, and in the corner at the teachers desk, more than a few instructors were conversing. 

  


This was how I first found out about the field trip. They were speaking in hushed tones but I could still hear with clarity. They were debating the morality of bringing kids to a local car museum, since we were studying history and were currently looking more into the automobiles of our world. 

  


There were multiple points of interest brought to attention, and while I don't remember any one adults personal opinion on them, I do remember each topic. There was first the uprising in favor of the cars, which I had then occasionally heard about, but not yet had explained to me. This lead to how such a trip could cause issues between parent's at home who may dislike such operations. Again, I did not quite understand what could be so horrible about museums. History wasn't a favorite subject of mine, and sure the occasional dinosaur skeleton loomed over me quite eerily, but the crafts and activities the specialised tours organised and offered come the end of our visit were always enjoyable. The third topic I overheard being looked into was if we should be revealed to such controversy by them instead of our parents. 

  


I left to join those my age pondering what could be so bad about this museum on automobiles. The best I could come up with was that the debate had sounded much like the debate on sex education, something talked about more commonly and that I'd picked up quite the earful of. 

  


After that day, I forgot all about the conversation until the time it was announced we'd be attending the national automobile appreciation day at the local museum. 

  


Still then, I didn't question too bad, for it seemed any problems that had arisen were to be solved the same way any other school event solves such matters. A simple permission slip. 

  


That night, my parents looked over the paper during dinner, signed, and then briefed me on how this museum was independent from other museums in how they occupied their areas and cases of display. They told me not everything thereris dead, or a fossil, or some other paper artifact, and when I asked if they meant it was a museum and an aquarium, but for cars, they gave each other a wary look I hadn't recognized before saying "yes." The conversation ended with them asking me. 

  


"You do remember not everyone treats their cars like friends like we do, right?"

  


"Yeah. You tell me all the time."

  


Looking back now, I realise how vague my parents had been over that dinner. I realise how the signs were all around me, for when I tried to mention the trip to our buddie Charlotte, a small red Pontiac sedan, she simply slowly drove off down the street. She ignored my calls asking where she was going. 

  


Yes, the signs were all around me. This was the second event that made it all so memorable, this stilted night with my parents. I had all the puzzle pieces, but no way to piece them together. Not yet. 

  


The third piece to making this field trip so memorable occurred at the museum itself. 

  


The museum was decorated well, with soft maroon walls and oak trim. Each hall of cars was decorated fit for the era. In glass cases against the wall, cars were displayed, some dead, some alive, and those alive could not move, for there was no room and they were bolted down. I remember once, staring at an old Ford, imagining Charlotte within these walls, shivering, and ridding myself of the thought as fast as possible. I was among the kids who oohed and awed at the cars of long past, empty shells of beautiful creatures, but fell back in contemplation and silence at those that still twitched, or peeked at us. 

  


Most we couldn't decipher if they were sleeping or passed away. 

  


We were gathered in the hall for the fifties. The walls were a vibrant crimson, bordered with silver and tiled on the lower half with black and white checking that matched the cold floor. An easy classic diner theme. On the walls between glass displays clips of old magazines, articles and advertisements praising 50s vehicles were plastered against the solid red. 

  


In front of us was a car worth over a hundred thousand, a genuine treasure. We were given the usual, this one was the first of its make, and also a racing breed. After a near fatal crash, he had been left to die. Instead, wild cars took him in, repaired him, and sent him into hiding. He resurfaced as a crew chief fifty years later, and captured only a few after. During all this lecturing, I could only stare in morbid fascination at this being that was clearly still kicking. He was coated in a candy navy blue, decorated with abundant fanciful chrome emblems and framing. 

  


He was a beauty, and he was clearly slouching against the floor, lips parted, almost seeming to sway and rock with the motions of breathing. His eyes were lidded, and his pupils vacant. 

  


He was like a living ghost. 

  


I remember the teachers trying to hurry us, rush us along to the next car, as if they too were disturbed. 

  


Before we migrated, the car moved, the car came alive. The car lurched forward, he seemed to be yelling at us and we all jumped back collectively. The screams and laughter came when we realised it was not a car screeching at us, but a car coughing up oil. Yes, this car was coughing, oil coating his chrome bumper and grill lips, a few drops splattering against and staining the glass. My classmates all yelled or screamed in horror, or were instead laughing and giggling and pointing about. The car had an expression of pain. 

  


I was still in the back of the crowd, and first I felt a low rumble. Then I heard it. It was like the thunder you hear of lightning over ten miles away, quiet and lurking, but ever certain. It was behind me, and I turned around to notice that car was lurching forward in anger. No, not anger, this car was furious, done up in black and white with a grill that resembled a moustache twisted into an almost cartoonish frown. He was the source of the sound, it was his engine running, and black smoke bled out from behind him, quickly clouding up his own display case. He refused to look at me, eyes only for the children mocking the sick blue race car. 

  


Suddenly, an arm yanked me away, and I noticed that everyone had already moved on. My teacher was dragging me away to join the communion two vehicles over along our tour. My teacher chastised me on keeping up. 

  


Those were the third and fourth events, the sick blue Hornet, and the furious car opposite him. 

  


Later, display case aired out, we learned the car was an old sheriff from the fifties, a Mercury Coupe, and the entire time, the vehicle glared us children into silence as we observed his form. 

  


The fifth event came to play right after being dragged away by my teacher. Beside us, the assistant to the tour guide had out a walkie talkie that she spoke into with a rushed voice. Minutes later, I looked behind me to observe a crew of employees rushing into the cases of both the Hornet and the Mercury. Said Mercury appeared to be muttering a word, the same word, over and over to the car in front of it, a look of utmost depression filling their eyes. As I watched, I recalled the words spoken into the Walkie-Talkie. 

  


"Clean up crew to hall 50, Cars HH51 and MC49."

  


Clean up crew. Why not medical assistants? Why not a mechanic? 

  


I pondered that the rest of the tour, and it wasn't until age fourteen, reading a text about these local museums that were still common found, that I got the answers to those questions. The cars were not meant to live. Their death was preferable. 

  


Even today, at age eighteen, these museums exist, and while it is now illegal to capture and put on display cars that are still living, many museums simply put them in holding pens were conditions are poor, or even just as horrific as life on display. It's despicable treatment of what we tell our children, what I was told as a child, of what we are supposed to value and honor and thank for their help. 

  


I was asked to write a paper, be it a story or a summative essay, on why I care so deeply about aiding cars and their still strong movement for equal rights. This story I present to you now is one of a moment that stuck most with me throughout childhood and teenagerhood on the treatment of cars throughout the world, and I hope this is more than sufficient. 

  


-Gabby Arnaz 


End file.
